The Wall Street Coup and the Bailout Scam Why the Rescue Plan is Fraudlent

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.counterpunch.org/zadeh10142008.html


October 14, 2008

Why the Rescue Plan is Fraudlent
The Wall Street Coup and the Bailout Scam
By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH

The Wall Street took the US (and the world) hostage and extracted a heavy ransom. But while the enormous ransom was successfully extracted, there are no guarantees that the hostages will be set free from the shackles of trickle down economics. On the contrary, there are strong indications that the fraudulent (and perhaps criminal) bailout may turn the current crisis into a protracted agony of a long bleeding economic depression.

Why the Bailout Scam Is More Likely to Fail than to Succeed

Leaving the issue of fraud aside, the bail out scam is also doomed to fail because it avoids diagnosis and dodges the heart of the problem: the inability of more than five million homeowners to pay their fraudulently ballooned mortgage obligations.

Instead of trying to salvage the threatened real assets or homes and save their owners from becoming homeless, the bailout scheme is trying to salvage the phony or fictitious assets of the Wall Street gambler and reward their sins by sending taxpayers’ good money after gamblers bad money. It focuses on the wrong end of the problem.

The apparent rationale for the bailout plan is that while the injection of tax payers’ money into the Wall Street casino may not be fair, it is a necessary evil that will free the “troubled assets” and create liquidity in the financial markets, thereby triggering a much-needed wave of lending, borrowing and expansion.

There are at least five major problems with this argument.

The first major problem is that the current financial disaster is not really a liquidity problem as it is repeatedly portrayed to be. It is a problem of faith and trust, or lack thereof, which in turn stems from the disproportionately large amount of junk assets or mortgages relative to real assets. It is true that lending and credit expansion has almost come to a halt and, in this sense, there is a serious liquidity crisis. But this illiquidity is not really due to a lack of good money or real assets in the system. It is rather because owners of such valuable assets are unwilling to lend their precious possessions to owners of troubled assets, or worthless papers.

[PSPS]

1. It's too bad people ignorant of an issue will write about it anyway

This opinion piece goes off the rails in the third sentence:

... the bail out scam is also doomed to fail because it avoids diagnosis and dodges the heart of the problem: the inability of more than five million homeowners to pay their fraudulently ballooned mortgage obligations.

The fact is that the "ballooned mortgage payment" was part of the original loan agreement signed by the borrower. It's called an option arm, and it is intentionally structured to provide a lower monthly payment for an initial period, usually two to five years, after which it "resets." There is no fraud involved here at all. It's all spelled out very plainly in the loan documents.

Perhaps the writer is one of those who took out a liar's loan and bought a house far beyond his means. And now that the initial period is over, he has to face the music.

Sorry, but I'm not willing to buy a liar's house for him. Let these houses be foreclosed and their occupants rent like they should have been doing all along. Propping up housing prices beyond the reach of legitimate borrowers is the wrong way to go, despite what this "writer" claims.

[depakid]

2. What do you expect from Counterpunch?

It's long been a disceditied source.

KInd of like the Art Bell of progressive publishing.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Well if that isn't a bunch of bullshit

Please provide proof of those accusations of yours

[depakid]

9. Here's an old thread that shows another example

of why counterpunch is- like I said, the Art Bell of progressive publishing:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=12091&mesg_id=12127

There are tons more of them.

Now, if you're into whacky conspiracy theories- and don't have a taste for tabloids- counterpunch is your mag!

[seemslikeadream]

10. Give me a break, please

that is NO proof whatsoever

TONS??????????? yea sure, you're putting me on now aren't you?

[depakid]

16. If you like Art Bell stuff, fine

but don't expect citing it to refect anyway other than poorly on your credibility.

[seemslikeadream]

18. Knock off the Art Bell crapola, what a bunch of BULLSHIT

[seemslikeadream]

22. So you tell me, all these people are "Art Bell" types YOU ARE NOT SERIOUS ARE YOU?

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[NashVegas]

11. It's All the Rage

Up is down, now that the left wing of the capitalist party is pwning the progressive side of the internet.

[seemslikeadream]

13. Oh yes I understand now

Sometimes ya have to hit me with a boulder

[depakid]

17. I'm simply calling nutters, nutters

Nobody takies Cockburn et al seriously- and haven't for many, many years.

[seemslikeadream]

20. Who do you think you are dealiing with here?

[depakid]

26. Who knows- it's a message board

And it really doesn't matter- whack publications have no credibility and serious progressives pretty well dismiss them.

Why, because it's counter productive to progressive causes. Now, if only that were true of whack things on the right- but we know thy don't really care- and aren't
Most progressives on the other hand- at least one would hope, find publications accusing Wes Clark of being a war criminal, to be- well, suspect.

Like me quote from the DU post I cited:

Gen. Wesley Clark is a major war criminal. Please don't be fooled by the current well-orchestrated push to nominate Clark as Democratic Party nominee for president, at trap which Michael Moore has apparently fallen into as well as a number of other well-meaning peace people.

Gen. Wesley Clark was in charge of refugee camps in the 1980s and 1990s where Haitian refugees who were fleeing first Baby Doc Duvalier (and later the new regime installed by the US following the overthrowal of the elected Aristide government in the early 1990s), were packed, under appalling conditions condemned by the Center for Constitutional Rights, among many others. In the 1980s, many Haitian male refugees incarcerated at Krome (in Miami), and Fort Allen (in Puerto Rico) reported a strange condition called gyneacomastia, a situation in which they developed full female breasts."

Please.

And in this case- as another poster pointed out, the writer doesn't know what he's talking about- it's essentially a rant- no different than those used by the far right.

[seemslikeadream]

28. Quit throwing that word progressive around who are you trying to fool?

[depakid]

31. More conspiracy theory

bottom line is that:

1. The source is well known in the progressive community to be full of kooks- someone like Rachel Maddow, for example- wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot poll; and

2. The writer doesn't know what he's talking about- even though he's obviously touched a nerve on some belief or opinion you hold.

[seemslikeadream]

29. Oh NOW I remember you, you're that one note guy

give it a rest

[seemslikeadream]

25. Come on sweetie let's go one on one with these authors Art Bell what a joke!

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Joshua Frank
Liberalism and Its Bounds

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
The Guantanamoized Age

Dennis Loo
Shock and Awe Comes Home to Roost

Zach Zill
Squeezed Out in New York City

Omar Barghouti
So You Think You Can Dance? Israeli Profiling of African-American Dancers

Bill Quigley
Social Justice Quiz, 2008

Andy Worthington
Bush's Bitter Legacy

Stephen Dunifer
Free Radio: Liberating the Commons

Seth Sandronsky
Bailing Out Big Auto

David Yearsley
Portabella's Bach: Grim, Trite and Incredibly Boring

Patrick B. Barr
Obama's Punchless Campaign

Rannie Amiri
Tasting Ramadan

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Flight Not Taken

Richard Rhames
What, Me Reason?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Large Hadron Collider Powers Up

Poets' Basement
Deer Cloud and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Wasilla Valley PTA?





September 12, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
The Next Cuban Missile Crisis?

Michael Hudson
More Dangerous Than the A-Bomb? The Chicago School's Record of Infamy

Lloyd Miller
Palin and Alaskan Native and Tribal Rights: a Dismal Record

Steve Breyman
Georgia in NATO?

Maria Rivera
Cuba After Gustav and Ike: an Eyewitness Account

Jonathan Cook
Israel and the Dark Arts

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
U.S. Designs on Pakistan

M. Shahid Alam
The Mendacity of Missed Opportunities

Robert Weissman
Executive Pay and the "Market Economy"

Tanya Golash-Boza / David Brunsma
Immigration Raids Must Be Stopped

Website of the Day
Know Your Rights


September 11, 2008

Noam Chomsky
Towards a Second Cold War?

Sharon Smith
Afghanistan: You Call This a Good War?

Ron Jacobs
Palinomics: She Ain't No Working Class Hero

Marjorie Cohn
God, Guns and Oil: A Palin Theocracy?

Mike Whitney
Cheney in the Caucasus

Jeffery R. Webber
Bolivia: a Coup in the Making?

Paul Cantor
The Other 9/11

Peter Morici
The Surging Trade Deficit

Ray McGovern
Iran's Road Less Traveled to Nukes

Linn Washington, Jr.
Screening Mumia: The Suppression of Dissent in America

Website of the Day
Palin (Michael) for President!

September 10, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
A Temporary Respite from Permanent Decline

Conn Hallinan
The Return of U.S. Death Squads

Ralph Nader
Who Needs Regulations When You've Got a Golden Parachute?

Peter Morici
Can the Bailout Work?

Joanne Mariner
The Horrendous Case of Aafia Siddiqui

Laura Tate Kagel /
Jen Marlowe
The Pending Execution of Troy Davis: a Case for Clemency

Chuck Spinney
Incestuous Amplification and the Madness of King George

Dave Lindorff
Lazy Thinking and Prejudice

Scott Campbell
Where Now for Oaxaca's Social Movement?

Paul Farmer
Haiti and the Hurricanes

Anne Kilkenny
Letters from Wasilla: the Sarah Palin I Know

Website of the Day
Democrats and Zombies

September 9, 2008

Michael Colby
The Obama Poll Drop

Chellis Glendinning
Retorno a 1968: From Berkeley to Mexico City

Vijay Prashad
Losing Game

Jeffery R. Webber/
George Ciccariello-Maher
Venezuela From Below

David Michael Green
Country Last

Brian J. Foley
The New Face of Republican Power

John Ross
Mexican Flag Wrap

Pierre M. Sprey /
Winslow T. Wheeler
Joint Strike Fighter: Another Defense Acquisition Disaster

Nicole Colson
Sami Al-Arian's Long Road to Freedom

Marc Gardner
California's Anti-Homosexual Laws are Alive and Unwell

William S. Lind
The Baltic States and Russia: Toy Armies or Accomodation?

Website of the Day
All Hope Rests with Piper Palin




September 8, 2008

Mike Whitney
An Interview with Michael Hudson on the Worsening Debt Crisis

Tariq Ali
The Godfather as President

Pam Martens
The Man Who Vetted Palin

Bill Quigley
The Weary Road Home: Displaced Poor Continue to Return to New Orleans

Malini Johar Schueller /
Ed White
Not About Me: Obamamania, Racial Porn-fest and Palinama

Robert Jensen
Pop Music and 9/11

Uri Avnery
Lonely Rider

Win McCormack
Palin Family Values

Howard Lisnoff
How Far From a Police State?

Maria C. Khoury
Taybeh Oktoberfest in Palestine

Website of the Day
Scaring Students from Voting in Virginia

September 6 / 7, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Sarah Palin and the Good Book

Jeffrey St. Clair
That Dam Senator: A River Ran Through Him

Linn Washington, Jr.
The GOP Excluded Black-Owned Businesses from Contracts at St. Paul Convention

Patrick Cockburn
Did Bush Spies Monitor Iraqi Allies?

Gary Leupp
The September 3 Attack on Pakistan: a Precursor to More War Crimes?

Nancy Kurshan
CHI-town Lowdown: Memories of 1968

William Blum
Has Obama Already Lost?

Michael Winship
The St. Paul Police vs. the Independent Media

Fred Gardner
Joe Biden, Drug Warrior

Nikolas Kozloff
Sarah Palin and the Wal-Mart Moms: the Cultural Packaging of VP Candidates

Wajahat Ali
The Cryptkeeper and His Pitbull: the Past and Future of the GOP

Robert Fantina
Change Agents?

Karyn Strickler
Palin by Comparison: Sarah and the Hillary Voters

David Yearsley
What Their Fanfares Told Us About the Candidates

Richard Rhames
Bad Campaign Moon Rising

James L. Secor
Bandwagon Politics

Missy Beattie
Missy for Vice POTUS

Eric Patton
Baseless in Obamaland

Ben Terrall
Haiti and the Washington Consensus

Thom Rutledge
Mr. Magoo and the Kind Stranger: a Serious Political Problem

Dan Bacher
Arnold and the Manufactured Drought

David Macaray
Is Union Democracy at Risk?

Jane Stillwater
The Admiral's Child: a Psychological Reason for McCain's Flip Flops

Grady Harper
Should Hunting Really be High on Our Priority List?

Poets' Basement
Wolff, Payne and Holt

Website of the Weekend
We'll See Your Sarah Palin and Raise You With Maria McKee

September 5, 2008

Elizabeth Walters
Old Fears, New Worries in Louisiana

Bill Quigley
Gustav's Path of Destruction

Alan Farago
Nothing Means Anything: The Fantasy of John and Sarah

Dave Lindorff
The Things They Left Behind (Including McCain's First Wife)

Ira Glunts
A Lesson Before Lying: How Republicans Solved Sarah Palin's Jewish Problem

Peter Morici
The Big Slump

Deepak Tripathi
Politics, Morality and the GOP: John McCain as John Major?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Energy of a Hurricane

Michael Donnelly
Change. God. POW.: a Summary of McCain's Big Speech

Martha Rosenberg
Free to Good Home, SUVs

Website of the Day
Sarah Palin's Air War: On Wolves and Bears

September 4, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Real McCain

Paul Craig Roberts
Who is Wrecking America?

Ron Jacobs
The Perishing Republicans, the RNC 9 and the Twin Cities Cops

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
The Soft Surge

Andy Worthington
Rendered to Egypt for Torture

Osama Dawoud
How I Lost My Fulbright Scholarship

Stephen Lendman
Katrina Redux: the Militarization of New Orleans

Fidel Castro
Hurricane as Nuclear Strike

Website of the Day
Is McCain Palin's Bitch?

September 3, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
The Fake U.S. Victory in Iraq

Sen. Mike Gravel
Good Luck, Sarah!

Vijay Prashad
The Indian Left and the Indo-US Nuclear Deal

Nikolas Kozloff
Palin, Hunting and the American Psyche

Ralph Nader
Repeal Taft-Hartley

Howard Lisnoff
Forty Years in the Streets (And They're Still Beating Up Journalists)

Steve Early / Cal Winslow
Can SEIU Members Exorcize the Purple Shades of Jackie Presser?

Shepherd Bliss
A Field Report From Slow Food Nation

Bill Quigley
Living in the Car After Gustav

Website of the Day
Growing Up Okie: an Interview with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz



September 2, 2008

Marjorie Cohn
Raiding Democracy in St. Paul

Jonathan Cook
Palestinian Village Faces Army Reign of Terror

Robert Weitzel
Biden and Israel

Corey D. B. Walker
Where Do We Go From Here?

John Ross
The Kidnapping Boom in Mexico

Eric Walberg
Wag the Dog in Georgia

Judith Scherr
No Day in Court for Ronald Dauphin

Richard Morse
Haiti, 2008

B. R. Gowani
What If the Israel Lobby was the African-American Lobby?

Michael Greenberg
Loofah Day in Cleveland

Website of the Day
Thanks for the Memories!

September 1, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Making a Killing in Iraq: McCain and the Telecoms

C. G. Estabrook
The War Will Go On

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Will a Russo-American Nuclear War Happen (Soon)?

David Macaray
An Elegy for Labor Day

B. R. Gowani
The Lobby as Juggernaut

Saul Landau
Real Gold Winners

Charles Orloski
Going Down to Hell's Cul-de-Sac

Gloria La Riva
Profit and Disaster in New Orleans

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Factory

August 30 / 31, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Speech; McCain's Palinomy

Bill Quigley
Gustav is Coming

Jeffrey St. Clair
Valley Boy: The Rise and Fall of Richard Pombo

Andy Worthington
Shining a Light on the Dark Prison

Deepak Tripathi
The Race for the White House: Notes From a European Observer

Stanley Howard
A Prisoner's Tale of Abuse

Dave Lindorff
Troopergate in Alaska

Wajahat Ali
Palin on the Prowl: a Cougar for the PUMAs?

Robert Fantina
McCain and Palin

Josh Schlossberg
A Bias for Life: the Role of the Environmentalist

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Voting

Missy Beattie
Stars, Stripes, War and Shame

Howard Lisnoff
Better Cuba Than Florida?

Suzan Mazur
Rethinking Evolution with Stuart Newman

Rev. Jim Rigby
What Would Jesus Ride to the Conventions?

David Yearsely
Katy Perry Meets Mozart

Serge Quadruppani
Italy's Years of Lead

B.R. Gowani
What If the Israeli Lobby Was the Islamic Lobby?

Richard Rhames
Empty Political Calories

Poets' Basement
Holt, Davies, Corsale and Landau

Website of the Day
Return of the Druids



August 29, 2008

Mike Whitney
How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

Brian Cloughley
Resurgent Russia

David Ker Thomson
Jacko and Me: Dispatches From Fifty

Joanne Mariner
A UK Window on CIA Abuses

Neve Gordon
The Ordeal of Sahar Vardi, Refusenik

Chris Genovali
Of Whales and Off-Shore Drilling

Ron Jacobs
What's a Godfearing Country to Do?

Michael Donnelly
Honest Abe in Denver?

August 28, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
The Battle of Chicago

Paul Cantor
Who Killed Victor Jara?

Saul Landau /
Farrah Hassen
Axis of Evil Defeats Neocons

Andy Worthington
Clearing Out Guantánamo

Ben Terrall
Return to Port-au-Prince

Leonard Peltier
Message to Obama: Symbolism Alone Will Not Bring Change

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Miasma of Bi-Partisanship

Donna J. Volatile
The Obama Construct

Website of the Day
Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker and Maya Angelou on the Meaning of Obama



August 27, 2008

Anthony DiMaggio
The Myths of Joe Biden

Jordan Flaherty
Three Years After Katrina

Ralph Nader
The Politics of Avoidance

Melissa Checker
Carbon Offsets, More Harm Than Good?

Bob Sommer
Blaming the Sixties

Cynthia McKinney
How the Democrats Helped Bush Hijack the Country

Ali Khan
Pakistan's Flawed Presidency

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
The Only Good Muslim is the Anti-Muslim

Dave Lindorff
Strip-Search Nation

David Macaray
Labor's Hard Lessons

Website of the Day
Stagnant Income in an Eroding Economy



August 26, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
The Big Questions About Iraq

Michael D. Yates
Obama and the Working Class

Paul Craig Roberts
Is War With Russia on the Agenda?

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Suicide Report

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson
Obama's Promised Land?

Huwaida Arraf
Sailing into Gaza

Joseph Grosso
Back to the Future: New York's Housing Crisis

Sheldon Richman
What About the Ossetians?

Binoy Kampmark
Impasse at Singur

Website of the Day
Taser Bait in Denver

August 25, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
US Out of Iraq by "2011"

Bill Quigley
Katrina, the Pain Index

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Outposts Seal Death of Palestinian State

James McEnteer
Death by Paranoia

Uri Avnery
The Devil's Hoof

Will Potter
The State Deparment's Green Scare Wing

Robert Jensen
Technological Fundamentalism

Stephen Lendman
Reinventing the Evil Empire

Wajahat Ali
Biden His Time

Carl Finamore
The Future of Trade Unions in China

Website of the Day
Don't Blow Up the Mountain, Boys

August 23 / 4, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
"Change," "Hope"...Why They Must be Talking About Joe Biden!

Jeffrey St. Clair
Killing Salmon with Paul O'Neill: Power, Profits and the Future of the Columbia River

Patty O'Grady
John McCain in a New Context: Why the Senator is No War Hero

Nicole Colson
Obama and Big Corn

Steve Conn
Obama and the Mining Cartel

Deepak Trapathi
Pakistan in Uncertain Times

Robert Fantina
Once Upon a Time in America: a McCain Administration

Jonathan M. Feldman
Obamanomics: Does the Left Have Anything to Say?

Joshua Frank
Targeting Pelosi (and the War Machine): an Interview with Cindy Sheehan

Osama Qashoo
Sailing to Gaza

Howard Lisnoff
The Long Silence: American Jews and the Palestinians

David Michael Green
Sen. McShame and the Wreckage: John McCain Discovers America

Dave Lindorff
Why Not Let the Republicans Deal With This Mess?

Christopher Brauchli
A Banner Month for Passports

Alan Farago
Who Crippled the Government?

Michael Winship
Cash Register Conventions

Richard Rhames
Vlad the Derailer: Can Putin Save America From Itself?

David Rosen
The Culture Wars Are Over: But Culture Warriors Are Still Terrorizing America

Patrick B. Barr
Don't Try to Tame the Lightning Bolt

Jamie Newlin
Western Turf Wars: the Politics of Public Lands Ranching

Poets' Basement
Glendinning, McEnteer and Bonner

Website of the Weekend
Cafe Reconcile, New Orleans

August 22, 2008

Boris Kagarlitsky
Fallout from the Georgian War

Laura Carlsen
Obama and Latin America: Change or Continuity?

Bob Barr
No War for Georgia

Marwan Bishara
From Russia with Love: Putin Hits Georgia, Bloodies Bush

Peter Morici
Is the Fed Still a Central Bank?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Big Heat

Charles Mostoller
The Battle for the Amazon

Sumbul Ali-Karamali
Obama is Not a Muslim: But Would It Be So Terrible If He Were?

Keith Rosenthal
Standing Up to Union-Bashing

John F. Miglio
The Devolution of the Baby Boom Generation

Website of the Day
Fire Sale in the Markets!

August 21, 2008

Allan J. Lichtman
Is Georgia 2008 a Repeat of Hungary 1956?

Dave Lindorff Loserville: How Obama Blew It

Ralph Nader
The Problem with Problem Banks

Joanne Mariner
The Military Commissions, So Far

Wajahat Ali
Descent Into Chaos: an Interview with Ahmed Rashid on Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban

Ron Jacobs
Georgia and Historical Farce

Rostam Purzal
The Left and Iran

Anthony Papa
Unlocking the Power of Art to Counter Injustice

Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain Way

August 20, 2008

Michael Neumann
Russia and Georgia: Proportion and Distortion

Ray McGovern
Musharraf Out Like Nixon

Eric Walberg
Georgia's Ossetian Debacle

Fidaa Abed
Blocking a Gazan's Path to San Diego

Daniel Haack
The Pentagon's Most Prolific Pundit

Mike Whitney
Greenback Surges, Euro Shrivels

Website of the Day
Hands Off South Africa's Centre for Civil Society

August 19, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for Nuclear War?

Deepak Tripathi
A New Age of Torture

Marwan Bishara
The Politics of Evil in the US Elections

Saul Landau
Baseball Diplomacy or Just Baseball?

William S. Lind
Leave Georgia Alone, George

Martha Rosenberg
Whole Foods and Other Food Offenders

James Brittain
The Road to Tyranny in Colombia

Pratyush Chandra
Krugman's Great Illusion

David Macaray
AFSCME's Strike Against the University of California

Website of the Day
McCain Plagiarizing Solzhenitsyn

[seemslikeadream]

8. Are you upset because he is Palestinian?

Just what is it that bothers you about the article?

[seemslikeadream]

5. And you are far more intelligent I quess?

:eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

6. Personal Biography

http://www.cbpa.drake.edu/hossein-zadeh/Default.htm

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics





An Iranian-born Kurd, Ismael Hossein-zadeh came to the United States in 1975 to pursue his formal education in economics. After completing his graduate work at the New School for Social Research in New York City (1988), he joined Drake University faculty where he has been teaching classes in political economy, comparative economic systems, international economics, and development economics. His published work covers significant topics such as long waves of economic expansion and decline, economic crises and restructuring policies, currency-trade relations, NAFTA and labor, Third World debt, determinants of presidential economic policies, the political economy of war and military spending, the roots of conflict between the Muslim world and the West, and the Soviet model of non-capitalist development. He recently completed a book project on the forces of war and militarism in the United States, which is titled The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan 2007).



and YOUR qualications?

[Octafish]

19. Bush more than doubles the national debt and the blame gets heaped on the poor.

Makes sense. That's probably why the FBI guy who blew the whistle back in 2004 got the ziggy.

FBI saw threat of mortgage crisis

Of course, that was then. Now we have the word of George W Bush that we need to bail out these fellahs.

[seemslikeadream]

21. Do you believe this crapola

:hi:

[Octafish]

37. There's a saying in Tennessee. At least, I think there's a saying. They have it in Texas.

Talk to the hand 'cos the face don't...uh, don't. Uh. Don't wanna. A friend of yours is a friend of mine.

[Turbineguy]

3. Maybe...

but look at it this way: If the plan keeps the world financial system from collapsing for a while, we have time to fix it. And in that case it will have been a success.

[Greyhound]

7. Thanks for your efforts.

I don't know if you're younger than I or just that much more determined, but I appreciate your :banghead:.

Peace.

[seemslikeadream]

15. And thank YOU very much

What a weird day it's been :hi:

[Cerridwen]

12. Wow, SLAD, one post and you got 3 o' them.

Status-quo "democrats" who can't debate the piece but only attack the messenger and blame the victims. Such "compassionate conservatives liberals."

Wow, where have I seen those tactics before?

As Greyhound said - Good on ya. (okay, that was a paraphrase but I think that's what he meant)

Thanks for keeping on.

:hi:

[seemslikeadream]

14. Hey you missed the fun stuff

:hi:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4232189

[Cerridwen]

23. On purpose. Sorry.

I avoid religious threads like the plague - the majority of the time. The few times I've posted to them or posted one about them, I saw some of the strangest shit posted. I saw a couple of guys defending rape and incest and child abuse. I was accused of being a religious bigot because I don't believe rape, incest and child abuse should be considered religious practices. There was something else one other time, too. The specifics escape me but it was another surreal experience.

I spent about 8 years studying comparative religion. That was more than enough time to make up my own mind. Discussing such an explosive topic on a public message board is just way more than my blood pressure needs.

Nope, far too many people seem to head into the Twilight Zone when religion is being discussed. I don't like visiting the Twilight Zone. I loved watching it on TV. I sure as hell don't want to live there.

Ewwww.

[seemslikeadream]

27. Hey that wasn't a religious thread, IT WAS ABOUT SPELLING CORRECTNESS

:hi:

[Cerridwen]

30. :D

You - are a nut ball. LOL

:hi:

edit: Eek! I just realized you might take that wrong - I meant that in a kidding, funny way - not a bad way. Ya know, like how you josh with your friends kind of way. Oof! Tensions are high on this board and I'm not ever sure my jokes are taken as jokes. Around my house 'nut ball' was a term of endearment. Yes, my family was weird. :D

[seemslikeadream]

36. LOL

Yea nut ball pretty well describes it

[malaise]

32. Good read

K & R

[sattahipdeep]

24. No one remembers butch reading Mein Komph? n/t

[bertman]

American generals had no problem whatsoever with spraying forests and fields

with toxic chemicals, then sending in U.S. troops with no protective gear. Then, when those troops started developing cancers at alarming rates, our military DENIED any association existed between those troops' illnesses and the defoliants they were exposed to. It took years before OUR GOVERNMENT would even admit that Agent Orange could have caused those cancers in patriotic American citizens who were serving their country.

Why in hell, would I NOT believe that General Clark may have authorized that Haitians in what were essentially internment camps, would be treated with chemicals that he probably was told were harmless?

That is not "twilight zone" stuff or even conspiracy theory. It's simply acknowledging that OUR GOVERNMENT often does horrendous things which it then tries to cover up--for whatever reason it deems politically expedient.

P.S. I'm a Wes Clark fan. I cannot imagine him having done that intentionally and knowingly. But, could it have happened unintentionally? Damn straight, skippy.

[seemslikeadream]

35. and thank you for your post

That guy always has to make CounterPunch a Clark thing.

[bertman]

40. The pleasure was mine, seemslikeadream. Sometimes circumstances make villains

out of good people. Or if not make them villains, make them appear to be villains. Such, I hope, is the case here.

[Porschenut1066]

33. Wall St it appears issued $513 Trillion in Mortgage Div.s around the world

It was only when China suddenly got wind of the fact that the same "assets" were being sold by Wall St. to multiple buyers that the lid came off the pot.
This is like selling a house and getting paid by say 100 people who have not actually seen the house, but have done similar transactions before and so "trust" the seller. Or perhaps the Jeweler who sells some diamonds on consignment knowing that he will be paid once the consignee has sold the goods.

Once the news gets around that everyone has been cheated, no one will do business with that person again. The problem is that person is the USA in the form of our Wall St.

Countries that purchased these "known to be worthless" assets demanded some of their money back. They said that unless the US government repaid at least some of their money a group of them including China, Japan, Germany and others would dump US T bills and make the value of the dollar fall to nothing. They gave the administration a week to come up with some money, and some sort of repayment schedule.

This is what we are in and why according to certain experts we will be in this crisis for between 10 - 15 years.

People have no idea how badly we have been taken to the cleaners by this administration and their friends on Wall St.
When Bush said to a group of his supporters before he was "elected" in 2000 he said "You may think your rich now, but by the time I get done you will be filthy rich"

Putting aside all the Neocon, PNAC, Right wing Fascist, National Socialism (by Leo Strauss w/o anti Semites)we are in a big pile of dodo and no one in the world trusts a word we say. They consider the US to be run by bullies, liars, cheats and thieves.

Oh that's right that just about describes the McCain campaign and the Bush Administration for the past 7 years.
How sad that we took our eye off the ball with regard to our country and our constitution and our Bill of rights.
But like the Romans said "Keep the people fearful and they will hand you the country if you promise them safety"
The Republican Neocon tactics have been around for thousands of years, but we stopped teaching our children the lessons of the past and so could be blind sided by the same old story.

[seemslikeadream]

34. Thank you so much and yea do do to the tenth degree

:hi:

[Swamp Rat]

38. k&r

[AdHocSolver]

39. This article is one of the few I have seen that describes major problem with the bailout.

This bailout plan is another scam to mitigate the losses of the financial crooks. Mr. Hossein-Zadeh is way too polite in describing this bailout plan for what it is: another heist of the American people.

This bailout is akin to trying to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it. The $700 billion dollars would better help to save the U.S. economy if it were used to create jobs for Americans to rebuild and expand the U.S. infrastructure. Propping up the junk assets of these financial institutions reduces liquidity, while at the same time devalues the dollar and exacerbates inflation. It all boils down to supply and demand.

The banks refusal to lend money for sound business activity without an infusion of more money (i.e., the bailout money) was just an extortion tactic in which Paulson and Bernanke were complicit. The perpetrators of this theft will extract the bailout money for themselves, and the economy is still going to tank.

The REAL reason why the U.S. economy is collapsing is because almost everything we consume is imported and paid for with ever increasing debt. The economic problems of this country will NEVER be solved until we get rid of the cartel agreements like NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and reorganize the Fed to bring jobs back to America.

When most of what we consume is produced here in the U.S., our trade deficit will diminish to manageable proportions. Americans back at work will pay income taxes and thereby reduce the federal deficit. (Remember the good old 1990's when jobs were plentiful and the government had annual surpluses?)

Mr. Hossein-Zadeh's discussion is one of the few I have seen that explains what is really going on. Moreover, he is one of the few economists who is able to explain economics in plain English without resorting to arcane economic gibberish.

The bankers have a fiduciary responsibility to the bank's depositors to loan money only to borrowers who have a high probability of repaying the loan. Instead, the bankers purposely made unsafe loans to bad risks with the forethought of repackaging these loans and selling them at high markups, while, at the same time, collecting big commissions and fees.

The mortgagors who were given loans that ballooned above their ability to pay, are in the same position as a person with a medical problem who needs a medicine that they really cannot afford BECAUSE it has a HUGE markup.

Parenthetically, several years ago, I worked for a bank. I was amazed when I witnessed how dumb bankers could be. Moreover, I would place them on the social scale a notch or two below used car salesmen.

By the way, I have a degree in economics.

[seemslikeadream]

41. Thanks AdHocSolver

You sound like you KNOW what you are talking about

What do you think of this, if you have the time to browse around

http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm